Sunday, August 29, 2010

365 days full of life

Tomorrow we head out to P-town for our yearly vacation. We've been going there for the last four years and have our fave coffee shop, restaurant, and B&B to look forward to, as well as biking, walking around town, ogling art we can't afford and just relaxing. There has been so much floating around my head (school/wedding/life) over the last couple of weeks that I kept forgetting that the trip was coming up. Then I would remember and get really excited.

Annual anniversaries and trips are great reflective moments and this trip serves well as a yearly landmark. Looking back at last August, I am very aware of how much more settled things are right now. This year, this trip is a needed break from the norm, but last year it was a desperately required escape in the midst of madness. Last August was... a tumultuous month. After a year of a severely challenging living situation with a less than stellar landlady, we decided we had to move before classes started again in September giving us about 3 weeks to pack up, find an apartment and move. We also had an awesome trip to DC in the middle of the month. And then we had P-town on the schedule too. We ended up having to cut the P-town trip short, for both financial and time frame reasons. But we did make it there. I had recruited my youngest sib and her boyfriend to stay at our place and pack some boxes for us while we were away. They ended up filling the 2 largest boxes we had with our heaviest books, so it was more the thought that counted there:)

Once in P-town, both of our blood pressures lowered a bit. We had a great couple of days. Then one night towards the end of the trip, we were walking around after dinner and ended up sitting on a short wall near the water. We were talking about things we wanted for our future, and James proposed to me.

Needless to say, in that moment, the significance of our yearly time there increased greatly:)

We came back home rested, relaxed, reinvigorated, newly engaged and ready to get things done. We found our current apartment, and moved in... the day before classes started. That was an unpleasant challenge.

By comparison, this August has been fairly quiet. We just renewed our lease for another year and are so happy to not be moving this summer.

So, since last summer's P-town trip life has included, to name a few-
- Moving
- Becoming engaged
- Planning our wedding
- One helluva year of school. Seriously, as some of my school peers will attest to- it was a ridiculous year.
- Becoming an RN
- Birthdays
- Unemployment
- New levels of stress and sleep deprivation

This past year has been full of high and low points. I can only imagine what this upcoming year has in store for us. Besides the obvious biggies (Wedding, graduating, becoming an NP, being a wife:):), and so on), I am sure there are going to some moments that, when I look back next August, I will admit that I did not see them coming. But I have a feeling that those unforeseen moments will make for a fun, full, true, and humbling year.

1 comment:

  1. I love this entry.

    Its so amazing to me that I get to watch as we all build these traditions. I'm sure you will be able to carry some of that calm into the next month!
    - Diana

    ReplyDelete